The (too) high cost of politics
By Lady Liberty
web posted August 23, 2004
I don't usually watch any coverage of the national political
conventions. I think of them as hour long infomercials, broadcast
solely to suggest to the average voter that he or she should buy
this guy or that as the next President of the United States of
America. But this year, entirely by accident, the television
happened to be on when John Kerry stepped to the podium in
Boston to accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. And
that's how it is I heard John Kerry spend far more talk time using
promises to buy votes than he did asking voters to buy his
experience and his qualifications (there's a reason for that, of
course, but that's a topic for another time).
In an obvious appeal to military members and those families with
loved ones fighting overseas, John Kerry promised to "build a
stronger American military," to "add 40,000 active duty troops"
and "double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist
operations," as well as to "provide our troops with the newest
weapons and technology to save their lives – and win the battle."
He spoke of increasing security at such places as chemical and
nuclear power plants, and of making sure that all cargo
containers are inspected for contraband or terror tools.
Kerry implied he'd restore discontinued after school
programming, and add more police to streets. He repeatedly
mentioned prescription drug coverage for seniors, and then
dropped in the notion of national health care insurance. He
promised senior citizens he wouldn't privatize Social Security nor
would he cut Social Security benefits. He also strongly suggested
he'd prohibit - or strongly discourage - the outsourcing of jobs.
(John Kerry's complete remarks [http:
//www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0729.ht
ml] are available on his web site.)
The audience went crazy when Candidate Kerry said these
things. There were doubtless people there who had loved ones in
the military or who had experienced a medical emergency that
resulted in big bills; many in the audience almost certainly have
school-age children and/or elderly parents. It's likely the vast
majority of them had a job, too, that they didn't particularly want
to lose. Those people hear those promises, and the answer is
patently obvious: Hell, yes, I'll vote for John Kerry if he makes
sure I get [fill in the blank here]!
Kerry has, during much of his campaign, talked of the
burgeoning federal budget deficit. So have many other Democrat
candidates, and rightfully so. But even as he criticized once again
the expenses incurred by the Bush administration, he appealed to
voters by railing against budget cuts that may have affected "feel
good" programs of one kind or another. Far worse than that, he
criticized the federal deficit even while he proposed and
promised new programs that would represent a significant added
drain on the treasury. And voters who let their votes be bought
for these promises will find themselves paying a high price out of
their own pockets in the increased taxes that must inevitably
follow to pay for such big-ticket entitlements.
But let's be entirely fair, here, and consider President George W.
Bush as well. He's on the campaign trail himself these days,
seeking re-election as the Republican candidate for the nation's
highest office. What's he offering for my vote?
Four years ago, George W. Bush said some things I liked. In
fact, I liked those things quite a lot. He said he favored privacy
and that it ought to be protected. He spoke about the Second
Amendment and its importance. He talked about fiscal
responsibility, and said he'd lower government expenditures and
return some of my money to me while he worked to shrink
government bureaucracy. Four years ago, I voted for George
W. Bush. That's right: I placed enough value on his promises to
exchange them for my vote (in my own defense, I placed an even
higher value on keeping Al Gore out of the Oval Office).
Today, the President has made clear the Second Amendment
doesn't matter enough to prevent him from signing the Assault
Weapons Ban should it be renewed. His "fiscal responsibility"
has resulted in the largest federal deficit in history, and his
promises of smaller government have seen a major new federal
department formed and massive increases in bureaucracy and
government spending across the board. His respect for privacy
has turned out to be the polar opposite as he leads an
administration that has virtually eliminated privacy, and is actively
working to get rid of those few protections that remain (the
federal government, for example, just sided this month with
banks in California that don't want to comply with a strict privacy
law there).
Perhaps the President's most obvious hypocrisy involved his
ongoing campaign promise that he would never sign a campaign
finance reform bill. He later quietly went ahead and did just that
(his utter disregard for the First Amendment has only been
affirmed by the Secret Service policy of "free speech zones" for
protesters ensuring the President never need see or hear anything
the average citizen might have to say about his administration's
policies).
Politicians, of course, rarely keep their promises. And when they
do, they're often kept in such a way that we'd rather they hadn't
kept them at all. President Bush, for example, has promised to
do everything he can to keep Americans free from terrorism.
Unfortunately, the word "free" is just about the last thing that's
involved in the resultant campaigns. From the USA PATRIOT
Act [http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=
12126&c=207] (which infringes dramatically on political speech,
and largely guts the Fourth and Fifth Amendments), to utterly
inappropriate and ineffective random searches at airports, to
database-driven privacy invaders like MATRIX [http:
//www.ladylibrty.com/matrix.html] (Multi-State Anti Terrorism
Information Exchange, and ostensibly private though government
funded program), we've lost substantially more than we've
gained - have we gained anything? - as the President attempts to
keep that promise, at least as he sees it.
In this election year, Bush's promises are at least as scary as are
John Kerry's. He's promising essentially what his father did in his
own earlier campaign, and that's to "stay the course." We're
already well down the road in the wrong direction, and he's
assuring me he'll keep on going the same way if I vote for him?
I'm almost tempted to vote for him just so he can break the
promise and we can start the recovery process! But I suspect
that, considering past history, that's another one of those rare
promises a politician will do his utmost to keep. In the event he
does, the loss of liberty and the erosion of respect for America
will continue its downward trend, probably at an increased rate.
Author James Bovard [http://www.jimbovard.com/], who has
written several books about the ongoing losses of freedom in
America, has just published his latest tome entitled "The Bush
Betrayal." [http://www.palgrave-
usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=140396727X] In his new
book, he says that "vote-buying is the prime motive of many
Bush policies," and he points out that those votes didn't come
cheap. In fact, Bovard maintains that the Bush administration has
"browbeat Congress into enacting the biggest expansion of the
welfare state since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society." It's his
contention that "Americans will be forced to pay trillions of
dollars in higher taxes in the coming decades." When you look at
it that way, I didn't sell my vote to George W. Bush for a tax cut.
I bought my own vote at a premium and then handed it over!
In weighing my options this election year, it's patently obvious
that both John Kerry and George Bush will take my money and
my liberty quickly, in quantity, and as often as they can drum up
justification that sounds good. Whether it's John Kerry's "for the
children," or "for the good of the majority" (has anybody else
noticed that socialism is very much out in the open this year on a
number of campaign platforms?) or George Bush's "to fight
terrorism," I'm not buying. And quite frankly, I'm not for sale
anymore, either. Some things - liberty being one of them - are
just too valuable to sell at any price.
Lady Liberty is a graphic designer and pro-freedom activist
currently residing in the Midwest. More of her writings and other
political and educational information is available on her web site,
Lady Liberty's Constitution Clearing House, at
http://www.ladylibrty.com. E-mail Lady Liberty at
ladylibrty@ladylibrty.com.
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